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SWAZIS SHOULD REMAIN TRUE TO THEMSELVES

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LISTENING to the radio, watching TV or reading the newspapers, what dominates the news are protest actions or strike actions, much of which turn into violence that leaves a trail of destruction to property and infrastructure. And this is what we have come to call democracy in modern society!


To call this democracy is an insult if you asked me. What kind of people burn down schools, buses and overturn vehicles of law enforcement agencies to the point where police take to their heels for dear life? It’s scary! If this is what modern society is all about, then I am scared.


 What is happening in other countries, particularly with young democracies, is disheartening. And my only hope is that Swazis don’t emulate this.
 In this context, let’s remain true to who we are as a nation - lovers of peace, whose only way of resolving disputes is dialogue and resorting to lawful means of dispensing justice.


I mean, some of these people take to the streets for the slightest thing - be it the nomination of a candidate they did not want and worse from the same party (talk of a house at war with itself) or inclusion into a new municipality.
I don’t say it is wrong for dissenting voices to vent, but the way the dissent is registered.  I mean, what happened to dialogue?


With some nations, there is now a culture of thuggery and hooliganism of untold proportions, resorting to the use of force, where justice would do.
And what feeds this mentality, I submit, is the fact that their governments seem to listen or understand this language by giving in to the demands of protestors. Problem is that, such culture would be inculcated to future generations.


Looking at our situation in this country, I started appreciating the Swazi people for their candour and peace loving nature.
Swazis do not seem to be willing to trade or sacrifice their peace for anything.

And apart from that they would dialogue even where it appeared hopeless to dialogue. And that is a good trait of this nation that one has to commend.
While it is to be accepted that this approach does not always get the desired results, it remains the logical one; as nobody dies under the circumstances and no property is destroyed.


Living in a country like I have described, where protests and strikes are a way of life can be scary - I cannot even begin to fathom how you go to sleep at night under these circumstances.
I mean, now during municipal electioneering, assassinations are the order of the day. I think in the end, people would not stand for elections anymore for fear of  being assassinated. 
It’s scary! And you ask yourself what would become of the national elections where the stakes are even higher?
And the tragedy is that the State doesn’t seem to know what to do with a society like that. At one point, the temptation of deploying the army cannot be ruled out; something that would be tragic, to say the least.
Question is: What has gone wrong with society today? What happened to humanity (Ubuntu) that President Obama lauded Africans for? I mean, the lawlessness that you see in these protests are just out of this world.
In years past, we saw ‘necklacing’ of alleged traitors of past regimes with tyres that were then burned. How on earth do you do that to another human being and still go to sleep peacefully at night?
The problem with this sort of behaviour is that it breeds violence through and through. People still practice an eye for an eye in some quarters and as such still believe in avenging themselves - something that becomes a vicious cycle of mayhem.  A terrible state of affairs this is. My final word at this, is that Swazis must remain true to their culture as a peace loving nation and avoid emulating such bad examples; that is, if we want to have lasting peace in our land.


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